The Sorceress and her Apprentice

This article is chapter 4 of the Book Original Love

Originally Adam and Eve were in an engine of perpetual love that was designed to flow out to the promised population of the earth. The pouring forth of blessing from Adam to Eve, and the returning of appreciation from Eve to Adam, would keep a constant fuel supply of love for the two members. Remaining anchored to their origins of headship and submission would be a constant reminder that all they possess was given to them by the Agape of our gracious God.

Just how long this motion of love continued in the beautiful garden we are not told, but sadly events took place that would cause this motor to grind to a halt. We want to examine these events carefully and consider how original love was shattered and replaced with the fallen love which we know as Eros.

For whatever reason, Eve finds herself at the forbidden tree pondering the meaning of God’s prohibition against eating its fruit. An intelligent voice coming from a serpent aroused curiosity as much as concern, and held her transfixed.

And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Genesis 3:1

Eve was well aware that God had given everything to her husband and that she possessed all these things from God through him. The question concerning a direct command of God was an attempt to place doubt in the woman’s mind about what was true. The thought to question what God had said was new to Eve, and each continued moment she stayed in dialogue with the serpent, the further away she was being drawn from her position in the creation of God. The enticement to defend God was an invitation to step out of the channel of blessing; the question was an invitation to deal with matters herself and caused her to forget that she should not have spoken to any unknown external questioner without the covering and protection of her husband. This should have been enough for her to just walk away and not say a word.

We get a clue that Eve was not completely relaxed in her answer. As is often the case when we experience fear or are under pressure, we can sometimes overstate a case as if that extra fortification will prevent the penetration of the suggestion into our minds.

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: (3) But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Genesis 3:2-3

But what had God actually said to her husband which he then instructed her?

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Genesis 2:17

God had said that if you eat it you will die, and Eve in her anxiety added that if you touch it you will die. This was the perfect opportunity for Satan to strike. Placing the fruit in her hands, she was now faced with the apparent evidence that she was touching it and she was not actually dead. From her own mouth had come the evidence Satan needed to apparently prove that God was lying.

Her confidence that she could handle this situation without needing her ordained protector led her to a place where it seemed plain to her that God was not telling the truth. Her desire to defend God opened the way for Satan to cause Eve to doubt God. So cunning a foe! So seductive his arguments!

Eve did not know that she was communicating with an evil spirit. Not just any evil spirit, but the father of all evil spirits! We might argue that the woman had no idea what was happening to her, but she knew enough to know that she should not act in self-confidence but rather run to the arms of the man from whom she had received all things, who was given to her by God to be her spiritual protector and shield.

Seeing that the woman is now confronted with apparent irrefutable evidence that God is not trustworthy, Lucifer strikes his blow against Agape in his war to establish Eros as supreme.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: (5) For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3:4-5

The statement “you shall not surely die” contains the seed of the deadly poisonous heresy that our life is not dependent upon God, but is something we possess naturally. Add to this the notion that I can acquire things in the natural world to enhance my life, my power and myself, and we get the wretched concoction that utterly cuts us off from our Creator. This lie, if entertained, would kill off the natural sense of appreciation that the woman felt towards the man because she came out of him and received her life from him. Secondly, she would no longer need to feel appreciation for the natural world around her being given to her, because by her “courage” and effort she herself had found a substance that would elevate her to her true identity as a goddess. No longer would she submit to the suffrage of “male domination and control,” she had found another way to God and the way was through herself; the way was a simple recognition of her inherent divinity revealed to her by the wisdom of the “beneficent” serpent.

The words of the serpent were taking effect because suddenly she saw something in the fruit.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat. Gen 3:6

The seed of the serpent caused her to see the tree as something inherently good, as something “pleasant to the eyes”. She was attracted to the intrinsic qualities of this tree that she thought would give her more value, and in eating its fruit she sealed her decision to accept the new perception of reality that was opposite to what God had said.

In case we miss what has just taken place here, let’s walk through this carefully. Eve was talking to an evil spirit. When she ate the fruit and decided in favour of what that spirit told her, she invited him to take control of her mind. Therefore when she approached Adam she was demon possessed. Worse still, she came bearing the message of the evil spirit that promised magical powers to become like God, and by definition that makes our first mother a sorceress.

As the woman returns from the tree she is under the control of Satan. She now comes to her husband not as a submissive wife, but as a teacher of a new religion. As Adam stands before Eve, we see the prefiguring of men through the ages who have stood before the feminine oracles, such as Delphi and others, who have promised them knowledge of their future destiny. As Adam beholds his wife who was bone of his bone, he comes in contact with a spirit that no longer recognises him as her master and benefactor. She had found another soul mate, another teacher who had promised her all that her heart desired without the need to submit to anyone. She has come not to be taught, but to teach; not to submit, but to command submission. This feminine spirit, now ruled by the forces of darkness, will be used as Lucifer’s seductive medium to convince Adam to become his apprentice.

It is not the spirit of gratitude that wafts up into the mind of Adam from Eve but another spirit, a restless and excitable spirit, an erotic and intoxicating spirit, a seductive and deceptive spirit. As he looks at her she is now sending him visual signals and pheromones that he pleases her and she uses her body as a tool of attraction to bring Adam into slavery of her inherently new “divine form.” Adam hears the serpent/siren cry of this sorceress who presents herself as his loving wife not knowing that she is possessed by the spirit of a vampire seeking to feed on his corpse and from these ashes bring forth the phoenix in the form of  Nimrod. It would have been well for Adam to remember:

For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: (24) To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. (25) Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. (26) For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. Proverbs 6:23-26

Adam wrestles with the serpent through the medium of the sorceress. Through her, Lucifer applies his magical powers seeking to attract him to the new religion. In her hand she promises life but in his heart Adam knows this is death.

To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; (17) Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. (18) For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. Proverbs 2:16-18

Adam does not realise that his wife is already dead; the sweet, submissive, obedient woman whose heart was full of gratitude to God through her husband, died at the tree of knowledge. As a son of this woman, I mourn for her, my poor sweet mother, murdered at the tree of knowledge and replaced by a spirit as wicked as hell itself. Yet more than this, the sweet submissive sprit that resided in the heart of Eve was indeed the Spirit of Christ and in eating the fruit she nailed Christ to the cross and therefore He became the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Did Adam vainly hope that in eating the fruit he might enter this dark land and rescue his poor wife? Did he also feel safe in engaging the devil and beating him? As I think about our father Adam and the trauma he faced, my heart reaches out to him in sorrow, I want to cry out to him “Please father! Please don’t sin against our Agape Father!” But alas I cannot reach his ear and he takes the fruit.

The new world order was established; Adam would become the slave of the woman. She would be the teacher and he would be the student or apprentice. Now there would be part of the man which would look to the woman for life, and yet, having also taken the fruit, he too would have feelings of determination never to be ruled by her or by anybody else. They both now would be locked in the battle of the sexes for the right to both enjoy and control. As we believe that the other has something of intrinsic power, life becomes a battle to possess and control the objects we are attracted to.

The purity and innocence of the original love motor, that released blessing from the head and gratitude from the submitter, is replaced by a game of mutual attraction and repulsion. This was a new world where, supposedly, opposites attract. The new religion teaches that each soul has natural immortality, and that we can enhance our inherent power by merging with another immortal being. The secret of this new erotic form of love is to attract a partner that will enhance you, but to never allow them to dominate you. The new experience of male and female intimacy is one of seduction mixed with careful manipulation; a process of revealing your body and hiding your spirit. The beautiful experience of holy love, that provided perpetual circular motion in the bonds of appreciation and respect, is replaced with the crude new reality of back and forth, mutual attraction and repulsion; momentary pleasure that gives way to feelings of emptiness and even disgust.[1] This new heart lust is always seeking, yet never satisfied. The new motions of men and women were not a circle of love that would disperse the Spirit of Christ to the whole world, but rather a magnetic suction that consumed all in its path like a sinister black hole. The genius of the Agape motor is that both elements in the motor know that all they have was given to them, and that because God is Agape he will give us whatever we need. Conversely, the Eros motor must seek out and possess for itself, and therefore is never content or satisfied.

It comes as somewhat of a shock to think of Eve as a demon possessed sorceress. This is just as it was for Adam, who when he looked at Eve must have felt in some way that someone as beautiful and as delicate as her could not be as bad as what she was suggesting. People today tend to think of what Eve did as minor. There is no doubt she was deceived and did not understand what had happened to her, but this only made Satan’s use of her the more deadly in causing the fall of Adam. Does this mean that men should blame women for the fall? Certainly not, the destiny of the human race was primarily in his hands and he made the fatal decision as head of the human family. Headship means that Adam was responsible for the fall of the race, but to fully understand the issues between men and women we need to understand as best we can
what took place in the beginning and how we fell from that original love.

The Bible says “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Man is double minded in that he feels he is both master and slave of the woman. He both looks to her for precious treasure and expects her to provide what he needs, while at the same time he wishes to dominate and control her. This double mindedness causes the man to be unable to see the plan of God to draw him back to Agape, which would give him the desire to bless his wife and hope for her respect and honour of his headship. As the priestess of the new religion, the woman would desire to bring the man to heel as her foot solider, while at the same time feel both infatuated and fearful of his strength and warlike disposition.

It cannot be overstated that two beings that seek to draw from each other, and simultaneously seek to dominate each other, can only self-destruct. The principles of consumerism and domination have no capacity to grasp eternity, for they are inherently destructive. Without the introduction of a new seed, the fallen human experience, with its Eros motor of mutual attraction and repulsion, would have ended right in the garden – its vacuum force causing it to implode. Although the Spirit of Christ was repelled upon the entrance of sin, the promise of His death as the seed of the woman opened a door for a remnant of Adam to be reclaimed to the kingdom of Agape.

[1] For an example of this see 2 Samuel 13:10-15. Amon raped his sister in lust and then he hated her.